The Strassbourg Ptolemy is the most important edition of the Geographia. Preparatory work was begun in about 1505 by Martin Waldseemüller, scholar-geographer of the small town of St. Dié in Lorraine, together with his associate Mathias Ringmann. Waldseemüller is believed to have incised many of the maps himself; all are firm distinctive woodcuts. By 1507 much progress had been made but the project was delayed and was not completed until 1513 under the editorship of Jacob Eszler and Georg Ubelin. The printer was Johann Schott, and the work, the first modern atlas, bears a dedication to the Emperor Maximilian. The Ptolemaic world map is a bold woodcut on the traditional modified conical projection with all regions above 65° north (just north of the British Isles) covered by the inscription Mare Congelatum or 'Frozen Sea'. The continents represented follow the Ptolemaic outline although the wood cutter has not felt he could sustain the concept of a land-locked Indian Ocean and so has omitted the strip of land normally linking southern Africa to Asia. The map itself is bordered by the ususal markings of latitude and longitude and the climates. Outside this is a vigorous surround of clouds with twelve characteristic windheads representing the classical winds blowing from each direction. Visually, (Shirley)